Cold Caller
Verse for an Alien Visitor
Carefully, I’ll show the puzzled alien the way
Through the museum of monstrosities that make us human
To that smiling stranger, who on any boring day
Looks into the eye of some botched beggar with acumen
To see a febrile poet, grave philosopher, sad genius
Imploring passers by for grudging cigarettes
Or the last piece of silver that we owe him for betraying us
As callous, sneering Pilates with clean hands and foul regrets
Looking at and into this dirty, ignored prophet, the stranger sees;
Seeing, he must be seen by the legate of distant lights
For recognition of the smallest, strangest, sickest you as I--this frees
The shining part of us, that had the cheek to leave trees' heights
As much as I might wish to show the grey guest other wonders:
Music cleaner than a pause, or sculpture’s frozen ripples
Feasts fit to make a corpse drool, books the ideal reader ponders
Rhetoric that softly thunders or dances that nothing cripples
Instead, I’d index what turns worrisome to worthy
Mere object to subject, thing to person, thee to me
About the Creator
D. J. Reddall
I write because my time is limited and my imagination is not.
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Greater The Expectation
"Black women are often treated like children who are expected to be seen but not heard. It's ironic that they're silenced, yet criticized for not speaking up sooner. When we finally find the courage to share our pain, they question its validity and ask why we put ourselves in harm's way. They dismiss our trauma, telling us to 'get over it' and 'move on' without acknowledging the triggers that still haunt us.
By Ken Clepper 7 days ago in Poets
Comments (1)
Sublime. "Imploring passers by for grudging cigarettes Or the last piece of silver that we owe him for betraying us As callous, sneering Pilates with clean hands and foul regrets Looking at and into this dirty, ignored prophet" Damn. I ought to quote the entire poem, but this is the part that really got me. You knocked this challenge out of the park, my friend. I don't feel I need to read another entry.